Bloody trail left behind after bashing death

Jessica Grewal
Senior Reporter APN Newsdesk NSW Bureau
Working from Sydney, Jessica specialises in crime/court reporting, filing for APN’s regional mastheads in Northern NSW as well as providing national content for the group.
She was previously Chief Reporter at the Fraser Coast Chronicle in Hervey Bay, Queensland where she grew up and trained.
Early in her career, she was named Queensland Young Journalist of the Year at the Clarion Awards.
More recently, she was finalist at the 2013 Kennedy Awards for Excellence in NSW Journalism in both the...

A TRAIL of blood, about a foot wide, covered the floor of a panel beating workshop the day Darren Britza was allegedly killed by Bundaberg's Shane Hansen.

Two brothers - Paul and Brad Southgate - told Brisbane Supreme Court today they saw Britza being dragged along the floor before he was allegedly wrapped in a blue tarpaulin and thrown into the back of a waiting car.

The men took the stand on day three of a trial which will determine whether Hansen and former associate Dean Mark Wills were the culprits in the grisly 2001 murder.

Paul Southgate told the court that around the time of Britza's disappearance, he was regularly sourcing drugs from Gold Coast panel beater Paul Dewer at the same Southport industrial shed where Britza met a violent death.

He said on that day, he saw two men "skull dragging" Britza through the workshop.

He believed the men were both about "medium" height and that one had a gun tucked behind his back.

Brad Southgate agreed that at the time of Britza's death he and his brother had "raging drug habits".

He said he too had seen Britza being dragged through the workshop with his "face smashed in" but believed one man was short and stocky while the other was taller and of Maltese background.

Mr Southgate said he knew that around the same time Mr Dewer had been sourcing hypo-phosphorous acid but could not remember hearing him accuse Britza of having the chemical "watered down".

Asked whether he was aware that Mr Dewer was "selling it (the chemical) to bikies", Mr Southgate replied "I don't know about that... I don't want to know about it".

He did however stand by a statement he had previously made claiming that in the weeks following Britza's death he asked Mr Dewer about what happened at the shed and was told "if you want to die, keep talking... otherwise, shut up".